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2,600 foot of weld.... 1 giant radiator

04-29-2010, 09:05 PM

the past few days, i have been contracting to an industrial construction company. they are making a cooler for an aggregate drier "cooler". the finished product was coming out of the cooler still way too hot and needed more surface area. the drum is 36 foot long (only the last 15 feet get the fins) set on 4 inch centers... my big blue pro 300 is getting a decent lil work out as the fins are welded solid weld on both sides to the drum. im still in the fit up phase, so more pics to follow... (btw, the fella in the last pic (part of the construction crew is 6 ft 4 and 300 pounds)..... to give you an idea of the size of this "giant radiator")

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i have a trailblazer 302 and 12vs suitcase, im using that to tack it all together and for fit up, i have a stand alone feeder on a frame with wheels powered by the pro 300 that i will be running 1/16th FCAW. the fillet on the weld was spec'd to 5/16... i can do that in a decent paced single pass with the bigger fcaw wire....this one is definitely a one time deal, i doubt very seriously that i will EVER weld 3/8 rings on a drum on 4 inch centers.....................ever...

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this might be the wrong thread to post this, it should go in the "not so bright" thread, but, it was on this job..... get this.... I'm running 1/16 fcaw with a c02 shield (not a self shielded wire) and the engineer comes over and decides that i shouldn't be using flux core because the breeze was puffing a little bit and that i should be using solid wire mig.... when i told him that both use an inert gas shield over the weld puddle, he abruptly and snidely replied " Well, I am the engineer..." and to which i replied "y'all are paying me by the hour, i'll run 3/32 7018 stick rods if that's what ya want" (they are on a time constraint and need this thing welded out by Tuesday morning) so, its on to 16 hour days until its welded out with .035 solid wire mig...... baaaaaaaahhhaaahhahhhahahahahaaaaaa

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this might be the wrong thread to post this, it should go in the "not so bright" thread, but, it was on this job..... get this.... I'm running 1/16 fcaw with a c02 shield (not a self shielded wire) and the engineer comes over and decides that i shouldn't be using flux core because the breeze was puffing a little bit and that i should be using solid wire mig.... when i told him that both use an inert gas shield over the weld puddle, he abruptly and snidely replied " Well, I am the engineer..." and to which i replied "y'all are paying me by the hour, i'll run 3/32 7018 stick rods if that's what ya want" (they are on a time constraint and need this thing welded out by Tuesday morning) so, its on to 16 hour days until its welded out with .035 solid wire mig...... baaaaaaaahhhaaahhahhhahahahahaaaaaa

You GOTTA be kidding me??? WTF!!! Where did that guy get his papers from a Kellogs box? WOW!!!
Well good luck with that one, I guess your getting paid by the hour so what the heck!!!

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they asked for a bid on this and i told them that there was absolutely no way that i or pretty much any other welding/ fab service that would bid it. i said hourly or not at all.... the construction company has used me a bunch in the past, i guess they like my smarta$$edness and my welds

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here's another one from the same engineer that should be on the not so bright thread........ so, i'm welding with solid wire mig 12vs extreme and a pro 300 machine, and the engineer stops me and says that im running too hot... said that i have the machine set at 29 volts and that is too hot for .035 solid wire mig... i tried to tell him that the voltage at the feeder was gonna be less for having 150 foot of lead and 3 tweco style quick connects in line and get this: he says that i should not be having voltage and amperage drop through welding leads, that welding leads wont drop amperage over 500 foot let alone 150 foot.... where do they find these people???

i do like to run a little on the hot side as the rings are 3/8 and the drum itself is 1 inch thick... 200 amps @ 24-25 volts at the feeder and c-25 mix.... sounds like procedure not too hot

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here's another one from the same engineer that should be on the not so bright thread........ so, i'm welding with solid wire mig 12vs extreme and a pro 300 machine, and the engineer stops me and says that im running too hot... said that i have the machine set at 29 volts and that is too hot for .035 solid wire mig... i tried to tell him that the voltage at the feeder was gonna be less for having 150 foot of lead and 3 tweco style quick connects in line and get this: he says that i should not be having voltage and amperage drop through welding leads, that welding leads wont drop amperage over 500 foot let alone 150 foot.... where do they find these people???

i do like to run a little on the hot side as the rings are 3/8 and the drum itself is 1 inch thick... 200 amps @ 24-25 volts at the feeder and c-25 mix.... sounds like procedure not too hot

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that welding leads wont drop amperage over 500 foot let alone 150 foot.... where do they find these people???

10 feet, 100 feet, 10,000 feet of wire doesn't matter. If you have 200 amps flowing into one end, you have 200 amps flowing out. Called Kirchoff's current law.

He just happened to misapply it by assuming the current going in would remain constant (not a far out assumption given the term constant current). Probably didn't get his hands dirty through engineering school.

80% of failures are from 20% of causesNever compromise your principles today in the name of furthering them in the future."All I ever wanted was an honest week's pay for an honest day's work." -Sgt. Bilko"We are generally better persuaded by reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others." -Pascal"Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything." -Pascal

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Quote:
Originally Posted by welder_one View Post
that welding leads wont drop amperage over 500 foot let alone 150 foot.... where do they find these people???
10 feet, 100 feet, 10,000 feet of wire doesn't matter. If you have 200 amps flowing into one end, you have 200 amps flowing out. Called Kirchoff's current law.

In our two electrical classes in mechanical engineering school, we were taught to think of current as our flowrate and voltage as our pressure. Yes, you'll have the same current at 10 ft or 10,000 ft, but you also have voltage drops due to the resistance of the wire, quick connects, length, diameter, etc.

What kind of engineer is this? Not a good one if he doesn't know basic principles. I guess the concern is over the integrity of the drum, but since the fins are 3/8, you wouldn't be able to set the machine too hot for the 1" drum otherwise it would just melt the fins without ever welding to the drum. He should leave the welding machine set up to the licensed welder.

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Hey Welder one you get me on that job and I'm flying tommorow. LOL
What kind of glove you're using??

should be done tomorrow night with this job. i am using miller heavy mig/ stick left hand, tillman 46l right and a steiner backhand pad on my left... gaudy, but effective.

as for the 1/16 wire, its what i had originally planned to use, but the engineer thought that the breeze would blow the shield gas off the weld and that i should just use solid wire mig.

i know that amperage pretty much stays the same over the length of the leads, but with voltage drop on a machine set at constant voltage over the length of the leads and quick connects, i had the voltage set higher at the machine than at the feeder

thursday, i'm heading out to a sand quarry to set 10 new conveyors and the structures to hold them... 90 foot in the air... another 45 days worth of work. i'll start a new thread for that job